A Whole Lot Of Stuff Going On

 

I thought my phone and text banking days would take a break for a while, but I’ve been signing up because Warnock/Walker inexplicably have to go in a run-off. It seems to me that there should have been no problem getting Sen Warnock re-elected but there’s just no counting on the intelligence of Walker voters. SMDH

I had minimally invasive surgery to fuse my right SI joint.  It’s amazing the pain relief it provides. I didn’t need anything more than a few puffs with my vape postop.  I am so glad I had this surgery even though my energy level has been a little low. It’s all part of the recovery; I’m taking it easy and find I’m napping every day.

I meant to update my blog after Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech.  How I admire her so! I think she’s been the most effective Speaker of the House in my lifetime. The first one I can remember is Sam Rayburn when I was still very young (early 60s). Following him the next couple are a blur in my mind. The next one I remember is Tip O’Neill.  Clueless about the next few until Newt Gingrich, who started this whole scorched earth business. Nancy Pelosi was sandwiched between John Boehner and Paul Ryan, who continued the scorched earth business and kiss-assed tRump.

Ah, but Nancy Pelosi!  I took notice of her especially during tRump’s administration. She was tough but spoke softly like Theodore Roosevelt suggested. She had that big stick because she could get the votes together to make Rethuglican passage of restrictive measures very difficult. I loved how she didn’t kowtow to tRump but remained calm, reasonable, and steadfast. There were times when she did make her opinion of tRump known, like “the clap” after his speech and ripping up his printed speech text.

I’ve seen the video taken by her granddaughter on January 6, 2021. The granddaughter happened to be filming a documentary. It shows Pelosi’s presence of mind during the rioting and evacuation that took place. She and Chuck Schumer were calming urging various officials to send help.  What was most touching was the concern she expressed to the Vice President when he told her he was still at the Capitol.

More details and speculation about what happen next from:

The Conversation

Dan Rather

Heather Cox Richardson

Robert Reich

I am really sad to see her stepping down as Speaker, but she will continue to represent her community and California.  She needs to be able to get out of the wicked spotlight that’s been on her, making her a target of tRumpers and the extreme far right.  Enough was enough when her husband Paul was brutally attacked.

Some people in this country just suck.

Speaking of which, in addition to the runoff in GA, we now have to deal with tRump again. Will justice ever prevail here? The man has committed enough crimes to land anyone else in jail for life, but he still walks free.  The Department of Justice has boat loads of evidence to charge him, yet Attorney General Merrick Garland chose a special prosecutor to investigate again, Jack Smith.  Investigate what? The evidence is all there already!

To make matters worse, tRump announced he is running for President again in 2024. I guess he thinks if he’s a candidate, the law can’t touch him.

Two more years of this clown spreading lies and hatred, inciting his followers to more violence. God help us all.

What's So Special About Today?

 

What’s So Special About Today?

I like to read This Day in History to bring back memories of events from my past or to learn new information. I learned some things today.

On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges and her mother were escorted by U.S. marshalls to her new school, William Franz Elementary School. Born in September, she was entering the first grade. But first she and her mother had to get through a hateful crowd of segregationists, white parents, who hurled epithets at the little girl. I knew that from other readings about segregation.

Coincidentally, Ruby Bridges was born the year the Supreme Court decided the Brown v. Board of Education case. Segregated education was not equal education, the Court said, and all children should be able to attend the same public schools.  To be even able to get into the school for white children, Ruby had to take a test. She and a handful of other black students passed the test and were accepted into their local schools.

Ruby’s father was afraid to let her go. He was afraid of what the racist people would say and do. Ruby’s mother was surely frightened too but she wanted her baby to have the best possible education. And so, they braved the vicious crowd.

As it happens, Ruby is 2 months older than me. Because I was born in December, in November 1960 I was happily and safely in kindergarten.  All the kids looked like me. My Grandma walked me to school without incident and with much friendliness from other kids and parents walking to school.  I had a lot of friends, companions in the lunchroom and playground. I didn’t know I was privileged.

When I realized today that I was the same age as Ruby Bridges, I became more curious about her and began looking for other articles.  For their bravery, the Bridges family sure went through some hell. Only one teacher was willing to have Ruby in class…and all the other children’s parents from that class pulled them out of school. Ruby learned alone. She ate lunch alone. Sometimes her teacher would join her for lunch or even for recess. I suppose that teacher had compassion for the little girl so isolated.

That wasn’t the end of it. People were so mad about desegregation that Ruby’s dad lost his job. And the storekeeper wouldn’t sell groceries to the mom. The family was ostracized.

I was surrounded by a loving, extended family. My grandmother was related to half the people in town and even the ones who weren’t blood family looked out for my baby brother and me. We were welcome everywhere we went and were never turned away from the corner store when we’d rush in to buy candy.

It gives me a sick feeling once again.  

Slavery was a horrific evil. Once free, although they were given rights to vote and own property after the Civil War, the disgraced planters and other Southern white came up with obstacles to obstruct and repress black people--mostly because they were afraid of losing their prestige and power.

Jim Crow and segregation was another great evil.

It was sickening to me that it took to the year I was born to give people of color the right to attend public schools with white kids, who were really no better. We are all human, after all. It was even more sickening that it took more than ten years to secure the right to vote in 1965 when I was turning 11 in December and still clueless.

It's taken too long and now the Rethugs want to take us back to Jim Crow, segregation, and the times of the KKK?

I think about what black people, Native Americans, Muslims, Jews, and Catholics have suffered at the hands of white supremacists. Recently, very racist views have been spouted by christian nationalists. Note the small c. They are not follows of Christ although they proclaim they are. They are as far from Jesus as anyone could possibly be and not be the Devil.

We still don't have racial justice.

I think about the differences between me and Ruby Bridges on November 14, 1960. I admire her. I don't think I would have been so brave.

More here:

The History Channel

National Women’s History Museum

Ruby Bridges Foundation

 

Happy Days Are Here Again

If I felt recovered enough, I would be joining in on this video below.

I'm still recovering from my SI joint fusion so I'll just watch and sing along.  I am feeling elated because there were enough voters in this country fed up with tRumpism/fascism that they voted out election deniers at all levels.  With Senator Cortez Masto's win in Nevada, we retain the Senate. There are still like 21 House races still up in the air.  Even if we lose the House (and I pray we don't) I think we've given the Rethugs a clear message that we don't want their fascism and conspiracy theories, their cruel so-called Agreement with America to kill Social Security and fundamental rights. We are saying that we ARE a democracy, bound by the Constitution.

The Rethugs have been backpedalling against tRump, who is rumored to be making an announcement he's running for President again.  Good, let him do it.  It'll kill the nasty new party off for sure.  If only the Repubs would to-a-man denounce the tRumpism and bring themselves back into what it used to be: the Grand Old Party.

There is still a run off election to occur on December 5 between Sen Raphael Warnock and that poor deranged brain damaged Hershel Walker. I am volunteering to phone bank for Sen Warnock because he is the better man by far and I respect him very much.  He is an ordained minister and still gives sermons at Martin Luther King's church, Ebeneezer Baptist.  How he could be in such a tight race is dismaying. And it turns out almost all of Walker's supporters are white. I know what that means: they are in or out of the closet white supremacist/racists. They'll vote for Walker because they know Walker is a tRump puppet.  

I believe this is what happened with the governor's race in Florida as well as Georgia An evil white man is preferable to a qualified black candidate.  What happened in Texas was a travesty in that white voters overwhelming went with a racist, incompetent incumbent rather than a forward thinking liberal.  Disgusting.

Baby steps.  We'll get there, especially with young voters, Gen Z and Millenials. We need new blood in this game and I'm very happy to see several Gen Z winnning races, including one in the House. Go, Gen Z!

So yes, I'm quietly celebrating but in my heart, I'm dancing.  Happy days are here again, at last!

Boomer Thoughts Day After Election Day

The first story I looked at regarding the election made me sick.  I will say this: both parties expected either a big red or a big blue wave. Traditionally, the Thugs should have beat out the Dems because that always seems to happen in a President’s first term.  I phone banked for Andy Kim, for AOC, for Call 4 Change and for the Democratic party. All the volunteers worked their hearts out. The problem was the Dem’s plans of action. They didn’t go far enough calling out the Thugs’ bad behavior.  The leadership was very subdued, even when Paul Pelosi was brutally attacked.  When Thugs laughed and joked about it, no one in the party stood up and shouted, “Have you no shame?”

The biggest mistake the Repugs made was underestimating just how much they’d pissed off women and Gen Z voters.  They celebrated and rejoiced over SCOTUS’ overturning of Roe v. Wade until they began to see and hear the backlash. They backed off the joy and some even scrubbed anti-abortion language off their websites.  But then they began to get the mistaken idea that abortion was an old issue that no one cared about anymore. They were bigly wrong. They also didn’t expect the enormous turn out by young people, Gen Z and Millennials.  There were so many young people voting that the Thugs in Congress are talking about raising the voting age from 18 to 21.  It’s just more voter suppression.  It’s OK for an 18-year-old to buy and carry an AR-15 and to be drafted but not to vote? Come on. Are you fucking kidding me? I am so impressed with Gen Z, the kids who range in age from teen up to around 25 or 26. They are not the lazy, uncaring bunch of youths Thugs would like us to think. These young people are very much aware of the hazards in their futures and are actively working to make changes so it’s not so awful. I remember young people from the 60s and 70s. Gen Z reminds me of them. But WTF has happened to Baby Boomers? Half of them have lost their damn minds and sold out to the Establishment.  Don’t they remember marching to protest injustice?  There are still Boomers who actively participate in trying to make change but the ones who’ve sold out are giving us a bad name. That brings me to the disgust I felt this morning.  The most fascist, vile of the vile have been re-elected by the sheeple: Ron Death Santis as Governor of FL, Marco Rubio, Senator; Marjorie Taylor Greene, reelected to the Senate from Georgia; Kemp re-elected Governor of Georgia; Abbott re-elected in Texas; AZ, NV and GA in Senate races so close they can’t be called. What’s worse in those five states: FL, TX, AZ, NV and GA? Some very fine Democratic candidates ran against them. Just to name a few: Beto O’Rourke, Mandela Barnes, Val Demings, Tim Rice, Stacey Abrams, and Charlie Crist. There are so many. The Dems failed some of the candidates with lack of enough support. That’s what happened to Tim Rice and he was beaten by election denier GQPer J.D. Vance. Georgia and Florida and Texas! What the fuck is wrong with the voters there? In Texas, millions didn’t bother to vote. WHY? Beto O’Rourke would’ve made a wonderful governor; instead, people went with the man who utterly failed them during repeated power outages and still hasn’t addressed the issue, Greg Abbott.  Abbott and his partner in crime, Death Santis of Florida, also had the bright idea to kidnap immigrants waiting for legitimate hearings to stay in this country and fly them to blue states. I guess the white supremacists in Wisconsin preferred to re-elect Ron Johnson, another right wing tRumper who promises to get rid of Social Security and Medicare.  I think the reason that doesn’t scare older voters as much is because they figure they won’t live too much longer anyway. Could that be? Well, what if they live to 90 and discover they aren’t covered by Medicare anymore?  There's no thought given to people coming up now, edging closer to eligibility.  Tough luck? Hey, when social security and Medicare came into being, they weren't handouts. Workers have been paying into social security with every pay check. When the program began, people knew they were paying in to HELP THEIR ELDERLY NEIGHBORS. And the idea was, when they were old enough to collect, younger people had been paying in long enough to support the ones going to retire. It's NOT an entitlement. We paid into it. Seniors have to get mad about people losing their rights. It's not just women who lost the rights to control their own bodies in these increasingly fascist red states. It affects ALL of us.  Once the red fascists gain more power, they'll be looking to eliminate other fundamental rights. Think they won't? Get your head out of your butt and read what these people having been saying over and over.  They know no one is really paying attention or are too dumb/gullible or too preoccupied with their own financial struggles to care. People have to care. Hard times come and go. We are all riding a roller coaster of good times and bad times.  But we have to focus on what these politicians are saying. And DO SOMETHING. Georgia’s another one that boggles my mind. Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock is a preacher, a family man, a man with values. You’d think that would appeal to the Georgians.  Don’t they value those things? No? Oh, half of them (the whites, not surprisingly) prefer to support an immoral man who says the stupidest things anyone could possibly imagine.  The Hershel Walker supporters may think he’s a moron but they also know that he’s a mouthpiece for tRump. I seem to remember reading about a situation like this before. I’ve always been interested in history and learned much from historical fiction. Well, the topic I’m thinking of is the years leading up to the Civil War. At that time, there was a violent “militia” type group called the Know Nothings that ran around committing violent acts against immigrants and people of color because they believed “white is right”. Tensions were rising between the North and South. Here we go again. Texas has made some noises about seceding. To be honest, my gut feeling is: “good riddance to bad cess. And take Florida and Georgia with you.” We’re here because we don’t learn from history. I don’t think we ever will. That’s one of the flaws we’re gifted with. It’s genetic. It’s not just us. I remember the Sunday School stories about how God’s chosen people were banned and punished over and over because He’d say “Do this” and they’d be like, “Ok” and then go off and do as they pleased, following their own stupid ideas because they figured they knew better or that they understood what God really meant to say, see? So, this behavior is ok…until it wasn’t. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t learned all I did over the years. Ignorance is bliss, right? But that’s ok. Life is just one big roller coaster ride. We go up, we go down. I’m remembering all those young people showing up to vote and I see a better future in them.  They’re smart, they’re savvy, they’re diverse, they’re passionate, they’re angry and they want to do the right thing. Once we were all like that, weren’t we?  Some of us still are like that, aren’t we?